Moreno Valley Mall owed city almost $700,000 as of January, letter states

Moreno Valley’s issues with its mall go beyond fire safety.

The two-story, 87-acre shopping center, which mostly shut down Thursday, Feb. 19, to correct alleged fire code violations, owed the city almost $700,000 as of January and has been cited for code infractions 88 times since 2019, a city letter to mall management shows.

RELATED: Moreno Valley Mall management calls closure ‘a temporary situation’

The Jan. 16 letter signed by Moreno Valley City Manager Brian Mohan and City Attorney Steve Quintanilla also describes a pattern of problems, from unauthorized construction and events to cracked pavement, dead landscaping and faulty escalators.

Conditions at the 34-year-old mall “pose significant public safety concerns,” the three-page letter read.

Dave Oates, a mall spokesperson, declined Tuesday, Feb. 24, to comment on the letter.

But in an Instagram post Tuesday, mall owner Matt Ilbak wrote that the mall “was surprised by the city’s actions.”

The city raised concerns about the mall “just over a month ago” and the mall “was in regular communication with the city” about scheduling inspections and testing, Ilbak wrote.

The mall had installed a new generator and upgraded its sprinkler system when “the city surprised us by formally closing the facility and ‘red-tagging’ the premises last week,” Ilbak added.

“Their action, while unprecedented, has only enhanced our commitment” to get the required testing and certifications, the owner wrote.

“In the past five days, we marshalled the resources and experts necessary to address all of the city’s issues. We are ready to meet the city and Riverside County fire’s inspectors at any time for completion of the actions necessary to reopen.”

Quintanilla shared the letter as he explained why the city ordered the mall closed with the exception of JCPenney, Macy’s and Harkins Theatres. At the time, officials said  “numerous health and safety code violations (that) have been identified as posing significant risks to tenants and customers alike” forced them to act.

How long the closure lasts depends on “how quickly the property owner addresses and resolves the identified life-safety concerns,” according to a Q&A on the city website.

The city’s letter responds to what it describes as a proposal from the mall to move Moreno Valley City Hall to a mall parking lot.

Before that can happen, “a multitude of issues need to be resolved,” Mohan and Quintanilla wrote to Ilbak, who is chief executive officer of mall owner IGP Business Group.

According to the letter, “various fire protection systems were demolished, removed, or modified without prior approval by the Moreno Valley Fire Department” before the city acquired leased space at the mall.

“In fact, the Fire Department was not even notified of any plans to demolish, remove, or modify these very critical fire protection systems, which include basic life-saving devices such as fire alarms and fire sprinklers.”

It’s not clear what space the city referred to. A police substation and city library branch are inside the mall and Moreno Valley’s first museum is in the works for the old Sears building.

Other fire safety issues included 16 fire code violations related to the mall’s shell and 38 fire code infractions in “individual tenant spaces,” the letter read, adding that “high-piled storage” along interior walkways could block exit routes during a fire.

On March 20, 2025, the city’s fire marshal started a fire watch “to continually monitor potential fire hazards associated with any construction activities at the Mall,” the letter continued.

The letter also describes “a host of property maintenance violations,” including “severely cracked” and improperly striped parking lots, “dead and missing plants, and damaged and inoperable automatic irrigation systems.”

The city took the mall to task for “insufficient exterior lighting and graffiti resulting from deferred and/or neglected maintenance.” The mall’s interior also is not fully lit, and the mall replaced lights without proper inspections or permits, the letter read.

The mall’s inside flooring tiles are cracked, and “operation of the Mall’s escalators also remain intermittent, indicating that some more repair work may be necessary to ensure their safe use by the public,” the letter added.

There also were “several instances of construction taking place without proper inspections and building permits” leading to stop-work orders, according to the letter.

Since 2019, the mall has incurred 88 code violations, including for unpermitted construction, piled-up trash and debris, poor landscape maintenance, and a “lack of appropriate business licenses, along with a multitude of Fire Code violations,” the letter states.

As of January, the mall’s unpaid fines and inspection fees amounted to $206,768 — and that’s after city officials cut the amount owed from $350,000 “in good faith reliance on yours and your team’s assurances that the violations would be resolved in an expeditious and diligent manner,” the letter to Ilbak read.

The mall also is in arrears to the tune of $465,858.76 for on-site law enforcement services, the letter read.

“It is critical that this delinquency be resolved as soon as possible so that the City does not have to resort to any collection proceedings.”

The city also accused the mall of “a history of complications associated with the processing” of special events, including the Magical Christmas Variety Show, Circus Caballero and the Robert Garcia Boxing Academy Youth Foundation Event, according to the letter.

“Recurring issues” include failure to pay special event fees and file required paperwork and the “improper installation of temporary structures which required the immediate attention,” the letter read.

The city also alleged “numerous unjustified delays in completing the necessary work” on the museum.

“For instance, the Mall’s contractor has failed to fully remove outdated fire sprinkler equipment as required, which required the City’s contractor to send in a team to remediate the situation so that construction could continue.”

Inside the old Sears, the hole left by an escalator’s removal “was completed in an unsafe manner with the Mall’s contractor utilizing old warped steel beams removed from another portion of the building,” the letter read.

Quintanilla sent another letter to Ilbak on Thursday, Feb. 19, the day the city shut the mall down.

In it, the attorney wrote: “You remain committed to either ignoring their existence and/or disregarding the seriousness of the violations …”

The “lack of any reasonable and rational response (or no response at all) to this very serious situation is a continuing concern,” Quintanilla wrote, adding that his office will “explore all available remedies,” including asking a court to put the mall in receivership.

“Please know that my office would prefer to avoid the receivership remedy,” the attorney wrote.